COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT: PROJECT SUMMARY The Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC) Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) mission is to reduce cancer burden and cancer health disparities in the HICCC Catchment Area (CA). This is accomplished through outreach, promoting and facilitating research, and engaging community partners in developing and delivering education, access to services, research, and policy initiatives relevant to the CA. The CA is remarkably diverse, with higher representation than the US as a whole from individuals who are (1) Hispanic ethnicity and/or non-white; (2) foreign-born; and (3) living below the poverty line (defined as <$12,140 for an individual and <$25,100 for a four person household). The greatest cancer disparities include the higher incidence rates of prostate and liver cancer in most of the CA, and the higher rates of prostate, liver, and breast cancer mortality in the Bronx and Central Harlem. In the Washington Heights/Inwood (WH/I) community where HICCC is located, the population is 81.4% Hispanic and/or non-white, 46.3% foreign born, and 19.5% living below the poverty line; screening rates are 87%, 87.9% and 72.1% for mammography, cervical cancer and colorectal cancer, respectively. These cancer screening rates are all above the US average. HPV vaccination rates in WH/I are considerably higher than in the US as a whole (72.0% in WH/I versus 48.6% in the US). Higher screening and vaccination rates in WH/I, a multi-lingual community with a wide range of health literacy, evidences the successful synergy between research, outreach, education and engagement. With support from the COE Community Advisory Board (CAB) we focus on areas of greatest relevance to the communities we serve. COE research and education efforts emphasize individual and community level cancer risk factors and neighborhood level environmental carcinogens. The COE has four integrated and synergistic aims: (1) Monitor the cancer burden of the HICCC CA by examining cancer primary prevention, cancer screening, and treatment, including access to clinical trials, and long-term outcomes after diagnosis; (2) Outreach to ensure the availability and enhance the accessibility of evidence-based preventive and treatment services throughout the CA; (3) promote and facilitate relevant and impactful Research in the CA; and (4) Engage communities in the CA to support, implement, and disseminate community educational, research and policy initiatives. During the last five years, COE efforts supported the overall HICCC mission by leading community workshops on cancer prevention and screening, connecting over 20,000 individuals to cancer screening services, enrolling over 8,200 individuals in the CA into 31 separate studies, and facilitating participation of minority enrollment into clinical trials. COE continues to monitor the cancer care needs and progress within the HICCC CA to guide program development and delivery, and to provide evidence-based cancer prevention, screening, and treatment services through outreach. Guided by the CAB, COE promotes research relevant to the needs of the CA and engages with CA communities through educational, research, and policy initiatives that benefit the CA and beyond.